


Black and Deep Desires

by blanketed_in_stars



Series: 52 Weeks of Wolfstar [27]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1993-1994 school year, 1994, Forgiveness, Guilt, Hogwarts Third Year, M/M, Post-First War with Voldemort, Reunions, Shrieking Shack, in which i live up to my tumblr url
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:58:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4309632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They cast the spell on three and there—there he is—everything about him familiar and terribly different all at once. Sirius had expected a slightly larger boy but this is a frighteningly shriveled man. He shrinks back, not weak as he feared, but overwhelmed. Suddenly there are things he wants to say, but he lets Remus do the talking. He can't trust his voice not to rise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black and Deep Desires

**Author's Note:**

> Week 27

"Going to kill me, Harry?" Sirius whispers. He'd thought he was ready to die, thought that none of it mattered, but now, with a wand pointing straight at his heart—

"You killed my parents."

— _straight_ at his heart. "I don't deny it," he breathes, and of course he doesn't, that's why this has taken thirteen years. "But if you knew the whole story."

Harry looks about to explode. "The whole story?" Sirius knows that feeling well. He was filled with it when he tracked Peter across the country, when he finally found him. "You sold them to Voldemort. That's all I need to know." Harry's fingers tighten on the wand, knuckles going white.

"You've got to listen to me," Sirius insists, although it's hard to sound imperative from the floor. "You'll regret it if you don’t." If he doesn't listen, if he kills and no one ever knows… "You don't understand…"

"I understand a lot better than you think. You never heard her, did you? My mum—" and _no,_ Sirius never heard her, and he doesn't want to hear it now—he tries to block out the voice and even though he can't close his eyes, he sees red hair and an upturned palm—"You did that… you did it…"

He did it.

Harry should kill him.

But there's a cat in the way now, right in the line of fire. Sirius raises a hand and shoves. "Get off." The cat stays put with his claws dug deep into robes and flesh. And still Harry stares down at him, green eyes burning.

Maybe the girl hears something; Sirius doesn't notice. But she suddenly screams, like a banshee, "WE'RE UP HERE—SIRIUS BLACK—QUICK!"

Sirius's shoulder seize up with the quick tension of the very startled, and his hands scrabble for purchase on the pitted floorboards just as the door bursts open and— _"Expelliarmus!"_

He knows that voice. It's older and harder but he knows it, would know it anywhere, in death itself. Vague watercolor memories burst into his mind—a dimly-lit library, scars, the crescent moon, and then the memories have changed into someone Sirius doesn't recognize and is all too familiar, standing before him, staring. Sirius stares back. The only coherent thought in his head is _you have gray hair,_ but he can't find his tongue.

Remus finds his first. "Where is he, Sirius?"

It takes him a moment to move under the weight of thirteen years, but he manages to point to the corner where the vermin is curled in the Weasley boy's pocket. Does his finger shake?

"But then," Remus says, very quietly, "why hasn't he shown himself before now?" And Sirius wants to explain so many things but he still can't talk past the jumble of words in his throat. "Unless"—Remus's eyes widen and Sirius could weep, could sing, there is still something good waiting for him, "—unless he was the one… unless you switched… without telling me?"

Sirius nods. He nods because that's the truth, or the beginning of it. He nods because he needs Remus to know even if it comes too late for forgiveness. His neck is so tense it hurts.

The wand comes down, a hand pulls Sirius from the floor, and _there,_ it's been thirteen years since he felt another person's warmth. He can barely remember, but it seems as if it must have been Remus the last time, too, although that certainly can't have been as warm. Sirius closes his eyes. For a moment there is only the press of their chests and the feel of strong arms.

"I DON'T BELIEVE IT!"

The girl has a set of lungs, Sirius has to give her that. While she shrieks at Remus, Sirius trembles with some sort of sensory overload, not just his finger now but his whole frame down to his toes. Remus is here, Remus will listen to him, and now everyone in the room knows that Remus is a werewolf. The accusations start pouring out. It all feels a bit too familiar now, too much like standing in a red, chalky street while Ministry officials drone in his face and rats writhe in the gutter—or in pockets, now—so Sirius moves before his legs give out and sits down on the old moth-eaten bed.

Now his hand is shaking hard enough that he can barely cover his face with it. But he does. Months of physical exhaustion have taught him that when you think you can't, you probably still can, and right now Sirius thinks he can't keep from crying, but he can. He can. He sees it all behind his eyelids, the shell of a house, a giant on his motorcycle, a purple top hat, robes whipping around a corner. In his bones he feels the concrete shake again. It's too much—

And Remus, Remus breaks through the roaring in his ears, saying, "Could I see him, please?" Polite, Sirius remembers faintly. He was polite then, too.

Peter twists and turns, clearly desperate. Sirius hears every fearful squeak and savors it.

"What's my rat got to do with anything?"

"That's not a rat," Sirius tells him, tells them all, although of course Peter is the filthiest rat in the world.

"What d'you mean—of course he's a rat—"

"No, he's not. He's a wizard."

One look at Remus, at the set of his jaw, shows Sirius that he is starting to understand. "An Animagus," he finishes, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."

The children stare, and Harry points like a malediction. "Peter Pettigrew's dead! He killed him twelve years ago!"

Sirius can just about stomach that anger by now—from anyone else. The fire in his head rages out of control. "I meant to," he snarls, "but little Peter got the better of me." It is very difficult to talk with his throat constricted. "Not this time, though!" It's remarkable he's managed to hold out this long—so close, inches away—those small black eyes roll—

And Remus has him by the back of his robes. They have to explain, he says.

"We can explain later!" It's too much to ask, now, after everything—after twelve years of a barred window—to ask for even another minute when he could do it, he could keep his promise—

"—You owe Harry the truth, Sirius!"

Sirius finally relents, falls back, breathing hard. He's left enough scars in his wake without adding another one tonight. "All right," he allows, "tell them whatever you like. But make it quick, Remus"—he'll take a scar over another sleepless moon—"I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for."

He stares at Peter, still scrabbling towards freedom. Right there is the reason. He's been seeing broken glasses and empty rooms behind his eyelids and hearing October leaves crunch beneath his feet for far too long. If he could have explained in the moment, maybe it would be easier to wait, but he's had to live with his own silence and here's this parasite making enough noise for two sentences in that cell.

And they're still just _talking._

"If you're going to tell them the story, get a move on, Remus," he growls. "I've waited twelve years, I'm not going to wait much longer." He doesn't say that he's afraid of himself, that when the time comes he will find himself suddenly, inexplicably weak—unable to cast the spell, to finish it.

He supposes he ought to listen; Remus has just asked for his help, after all. But that little bag of fur and bones draws his eyes like the midday sun. He remembers finding a rat, years ago, before he left home. It was in the cellar. He didn't like to go there, into the dark and the damp, but Regulus did, and Sirius hadn't yet realized that they were two different people.

The rat had run across his shoes and into Reg's waiting hands, and they had made a small pen for it out of boxes and shelves. It was a game without a purpose, a childish cruelty while the rodent squealed. They let it go a few minutes later and climbed the stairs with dusty knees to a house that was also dark and damp. Sirius had always associated rats with his brother, after that—with nonsense and something like happiness. With the way Reg turned out, he thinks he should have known.

Thinking of Regulus does funny things to his vision, even now. He tries vaguely to tune into the conversation, and catches an old name just before it slips from his ears. "Snape?" he repeats, that vicious syllable. "What's Snape got to do with it?"

Remus sighs, the same way he used to when they came up with a particularly rude plan. "He's here, Sirius, he's teaching here as well." He begins explaining the grudge, the trick.

Sirius remembers feeling remorse afterwards—Remus didn't speak to him for three months, and he had never meant to hurt, not really—but now he only knows resentment. It's all he has room for.

Then, with a suddenness that sends Sirius leaping from the bed, Snape is there—right there—the same smirk on his ugly face. He gloats, but Remus is talking him down—no, Remus is bound and gagged on the floor. Sirius takes one furious step forward and stops, frozen, a wand pointed into his face.

"Give me a reason," Snivellus says. "Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will."

It must be his mother doing this from beyond the grave. Sirius has never gone in for afterlife theories, but she is the only person he can think of who would want to torture him like this, dangling the carrot in front of him again and again only to snatch it away. He seethes and wishes for his wand. Any wand. The girl tries reasoning, and the slimeball shouts at her.

Then he turns his gaze back to Sirius. "Vengeance is very sweet. How I hoped I would be the one to catch you…"

Sirius swallows as much of his anger as he can, even with Remus tied up at his feet. "The joke's on you, Severus. As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle, I'll come quietly."

But Snape smiles a kind of unhealthy jack-o-lantern grin. "Up to the castle? I don't think we need to go that far." Sirius knows then what he'll say next, _pleased enough to give you a little kiss,_ and the anger is replaced by a numb panic.

"You've got to hear me out," he stammers, begging as he has never begged in his life. "The rat—look at the rat—"

Harry starts talking then, but Sirius, mess that he is, can practically feel his soul in his throat, or his chest, or wherever it is that souls live. Before he had thought he was ready to die and now he is again—death would be beautiful, just not the Dementors, not that fate.

"Expelliarmus!" shout Harry and his friends, a burst of noise that snaps Sirius back into reality where he is fully alive if not fully sane.

He looks at Snape's unconscious lump of a body and feels disappointment. "You shouldn't have done that," he says. "You should have left him to me." He crouches and works at Remus's bonds until he's free.

They're back to convincing and dull things that are not revenge, and therefore pointless. Then Remus turns to him and gives him his Prefect frown. "How did you find out where he was?"

Sirius reaches into his threadbare robes and pulls out the water-smeared page of the _Prophet._

"How did you get this?"

"Fudge," Sirius says, and tells them the story. He can't help preening the tiniest bit. "He's got a toe missing," he adds, the last piece of the puzzle.

"Of course," Remus says in a wondering tone. "He cut it off himself?"

"Just before he transformed." Sirius explains the rest of that scene in Canterbury but his mind isn't on the words—it's all ringing bells, _Remus understands, Remus believes,_ he is no longer alone in this.

But it's not enough when Harry explodes again. He screams things that sound like the truth after thirteen years—"HE SAID HE KILLED THEM!"

"Harry," Sirius fights to say, "I as good as killed them." He finally lays bare his sins and doesn't blame Remus for looking at the ground. "And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies… I realized what Peter must've done… what I'd done…" Breathing is harder than speaking now, so he gives up and turns away.

When Remus has Peter, he turns back. "Together?"

"I think so."

They cast the spell on three and there—there he is—everything about him familiar and terribly different all at once. Sirius had expected a slightly larger boy, but this is a frighteningly shriveled man. He shrinks back, not weak as he feared, but overwhelmed. Suddenly there are things he wants to say, but he lets Remus do the talking. He can't trust his voice not to rise.

Peter is shrill and clearly terrified. He lies—weeps—blubbers on the floor. The accusations start. "I suppose He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a few tricks!"

Sirius laughs, the same way he did the last time they were face to face, the only way he can remember how. "Voldemort, teach me tricks?" Peter quivers violently, and Sirius sees. "What, scared to hear your old master's name? I don't blame you, Peter," oh, it feels so good, "his lot aren't very happy with you, are they?"

And then he can't stop—can't hold it back. He has the answers, and Peter keeps opening himself up for the attack. Mumbles and whimpers are no match for evidence and truth. Sirius lays it out, every part, and he shouts, wants to cry, shouts louder—

"Sirius—it's me… it's Peter… your friend… you wouldn't!"

Sirius kicks. "There's enough filth on my robes without you touching them."

Peter falls on Remus instead then and begs. "Wouldn't Sirius have told you they'd changed the plan?"

There it is, that is his single, dirtiest stain. Remus shakes his head. "Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter. I assume that's why you didn't tell me, Sirius?"

What can he say? Where does he start?

It feels suddenly that this is the point, the be-all and the end-all here, to have this chance. He can feel it all again—paranoia, rain at a funeral, shadows through a door. He remembers what it was like to brush a kiss and not mean it, or to mean it despite everything and hate himself for that. The expression on Remus's face, those times, was lost and confused. Neither of them are boys now but Sirius still sees it—still hunches beneath the guilt of it. He opens his mouth and doesn't know what will come out.

"Forgive me, Remus."

In the second that follows, Sirius is sure that he is far beyond forgiveness. No matter the end result, some wounds leave deep marks that years can't smooth over. He rotted in a cell for a dozen years while Remus lived them, grieved and scorned and hated him, surely. Even if he isn't truly guilty, how do you let go of that anger? Remus opens his mouth and Sirius braces—

"Not at all, Padfoot, old friend."


End file.
